Tag Archives: DoctorWho

“Every year since I took over [Doctor Who] I’ve been trying to get the Zygons in and then I thought ‘Well, it’s the 50th…’

The Zygons are beautifully designed monsters, they are so wonderful… We barely changed the design at all because it was so good.”

He also added:

“Obviously the Daleks had to be there, the Daleks had to come to the party because they’re really scary and are part of the iconography of Doctor Who – possibly the central part – so we had to have them.

”And in a way it was fun to bring back Doctor Who’s biggest monster success ever, the Daleks, and then go to maybe the smallest monster success [the Zygons] – they were only in it once but everyone remembers them – great monsters, great outfits… and they have these nice whispery voices…”

Paul McGann may not be appearing in the 50th anniversary special, but he is still hopes that the Eighth Doctor will return to TV some day. While speaking about The Day of the Doctor, McGann told Flicks and the City:

“I was a bit dismayed because I always wanted to be in a 3D anything — even like Jaws 3D! I’d love to have been in any old rubbish. So I was bit gutted when I heard that’s what it was going to be like.

“There’s no McCoy… there’s no, you know… we’re not in it. Nor are we in the Christmas special let me tell you. I don’t think so anyway! Not unless they are going to shoot it next week.”

He also added:

“There’s all kind of rumours and counter-rumours and everything doing the rounds. One gets tired trying to refute things on Twitter and the like. Take it from me, I’m not in it.”

However, he does hope to return one day:

“The thing about Doctor Who of course is that if not now, then maybe some other time. That’s the beauty of it. We can always come back.”

McGann also commented on Peter Capaldi’s casting: “I think it’s in great hands… and hopefully he’ll swear like a trooper, like Malcolm Tucker!”

“We’ve got to set the Doctor off in a brand new direction. It’s chapter two of his life. Now something happens to him that changes the way he thinks and the way he will adventure from now on. You can celebrate an anniversary in many ways – I think the most productive one within the narrative is to say “This is where the story really starts. This is where he finds his mission, he finds his destiny.”

Moffat also added:

“We’re not fibbing – this one is going to change the course of the series. And it’s very rare in Doctor Who that the story happens to the Doctor. It happens to people around him, and he helps out – he’s the hero figure who rides in and saves everybody from the story of the week. He is not the story of the week. In this, he is the story of the week. This is the day of the Doctor. This is his most important day. His most important moment. This is the one he’ll remember, whereas I often think the Doctor wanders back to his TARDIS and forgets all about it.”

Moffat also discussed the dynamic between the three [known] Doctors featured in the 50th:

“I wrote it as the friction version. When you’re talking to yourself there are no limitations, there’s no holding back. You wouldn’t be kind or courteous. At the same time, because they are two loveable, madcap, caffeinated Doctors, they’re also quite fanboyish about each other. They think it’s quite cool. They’re not broody, upset Doctors – it’s more “There’s two of us! Brilliant!” But that’s mostly in the playing, because they were having such a good time together that they brought that out. They get giggly with each other. It is, by lovely accident, a tremendous double-act. They’re naturally funny together. Enough alike and enough dissimilar. Matt said it was like Laurel and Laurel, as if Hardy didn’t show up – except he does in the form of John Hurt!”

“The weird thing is there’s never that much contrast between Doctors. The truth is it’s not wildly different how they’re written. I’ve written quite a lot for both of them, and you just have the voice in your head, very clearly. Where they are similar is funny, because they’re practically in unison, and where they are different is David is a cheeky, sexy, genuinely cool Doctor, up against a Doctor who thinks he’s sexy and cool but is woefully wrong on that subject! And that’s just naturally funny.”

During an interview with Radio Times on October 13th, Steven Moffat stated that Peter Capaldi is in the process of searching for his 12th Doctor’s attire.

Moffat said: “I think actually right now – I think literally right now. [Peter] was texting me ‘I’m out with [the wardrobe stylist] at the moment, it’s going quite well’ and some descriptions of clothes I did not understand. If it’s not a suit…”

He also added: “He likes his clothes. he’s got very strong opinions about clothes, he’s very dashing.”

Moffat’s input on Capaldi’s attire will be minimal though: “I’ll just let them get on with it and it’ll be ‘yes’ or ‘no’ a the end. Matt [Smith] said ‘I should be a boffin, I think I need to go with the bow tie’ and I said ‘No, absolutely not, you’re not wearing a bow tie – that’s a cartoon idea of what Doctor Who is… Oh, you are going to wear a bow tie – you look incredible in it. And from that moment on he suddenly came to life, and he put the tweed jacket on and suddenly he’s leaping round the room with a biro pen and that was it – he was the Doctor.”

Moffat also decided to tease Whovians with a cryptic statement regarding the Doctor’s regeneration limit:

Moffat today confirmed of the Doctor, “He can only regenerate 12 times”, while simultaneously suggesting there has been a miscalculation of how many regenerations he has actually been through.

“I think you should go back to your DVDs and count correctly this time,” said Moffat, “there’s something you’ve all missed.”

Steven Moffat has given a little insight on why Christopher Eccleston turned down the chance to appear in the 50th anniversary special, The Day of the Doctor.

In an interview in SFX magazine (#241, out 16 October), Moffat says: “I had an initial contact with Chris [Eccleston] and, in a very amiable and gentlemanly way, he didn’t feel that he could come back to it.

He adds: “There wasn’t any big fuss about it – I had a couple of meetings with him, and he was perfectly pleasant, and indeed quite enthused about the show, but he just doesn’t do that, it’s just not him.”

Peter Davison, the Fifth Doctor has been dropping hints that the Doctor regeneration limit will be addressed very soon and that Moffat has already worked out how it will be dealt with.

Davison was quoted saying: “I know people are worried about it, but I think there will be a way around that rule. I know that Steven has put in the groundwork already in an episode so that there can be more.”

Some rumours have circulated that it will be addressed in The Day of the Doctor. It would certainly be a great way to secure the future of the show as Moffat has told fans that he is planning to do, and what better time than during the 50th anniversary.

If John Hurt’s Doctor is going to count as a true incarnation of The Doctor, it’s also something that will need to be addressed sooner rather than later.

The National Media Museum is going to be invaded by Doctor Who fans. To celebrate the 50th anniversary, the museum is opening up its doors for Doctor Who Family Fun.

The exhibition will be a host of activities for Whovians of all ages. Visitors will be able to create a light-up TARDIS, a moving Dalek, or make their own Doctor Who monster to take home with them. The exhibit will also feature a behind-the-scenes film showing how Doctor Who is made.

The episode ‘Nightmare in Silver’, featuring Matt Smith taking on the Cybermen, will also be shown for visitors.

The whole family will be able to participate in a Doctor Who trivia while the children are making their own monsters.

The museum’s learning program coordinator Elaine Richmond said: “We hope families will join us this half term to help keep the Museum from the clutches of the dreaded Daleks. We’re very excited about this event and promise a lot of Doctor Who-themed fun and activities in anticipation of the 50th anniversary episode next month.”

The Doctor Who Family Fun takes place at the National Media Museum, Bradford from October 26 to November 3.

It must be getting old really quick for Paul McGann to have to deny rumors about making an apperance in the Doctor Who 50th anniversary, but it doesn’t help that the majority of these rumors come directly from his personal Twitter feed.

Last night, Whovian excitement was stirred up with a tweet from the McGann himself saying: “Spent forty minutes this pm having to imitate Matt Smith’s dramatic delivery in VO. You have been warned….”

However, he quickly followed up the tweet with an explanation: “I should explain. It was by way of an aural experiment to find out how similar we might sound. We didn’t. And he’s better looking too.”

McGann already denied involvement when asked directly: “No, I’m not in the 50th, though plenty of beautiful and talented people are.”

“You’re going to get every kind of retrospective in the world when it comes to the 50th and you’re not going to be short. To make this show just a walk-down, just a tribute to the past, a backward glance, would be like one of those end of year shows: ‘That was the year that was! Look back and feel slightly old and sad.’ Don’t do that! Of course it’s a celebration of the legend of Doctor Who, but more importantly it’s ensuring there’s going to be a 100th anniversary.

He adds: “It’s a hugely important story to the Doctor. That was my mission statement. Very, very rarely in Doctor Who does a story matter to him very much at all. Obviously he runs around, defeats mutants, meets a space badger, saves a civilisation, causes epiphanies to happen to everyone he meets, rushes back to the TARDIS and forgets everything about it. If you asked him he might have a vague memory of the badger, and that’s it.

“My intent was to move it forward, to have a show that’s equally about the next fifty years of Doctor Who. Attaching the word fifty to anything… I almost tried to rip the logo off saying ‘Why is that good?! That show you’re watching is really old!’ Why is that a good thing to say? It’s about proving we’ve got many, many more stories to tell, and in a way, being able to say the story really starts here. People ask me how am I going to please the regular audience and I say I’m actually on a recruitment drive to get the people who’ve never watched it before to watch Doctor Who. That’s what matters. There are some people out there who’ve never watched it before, God help them. You want them to think, ‘Oh I’ve been missing out, I’m going to join in now.’

“If you’re going to celebrate Doctor Who, you’re celebrating the Doctor – well, why not tell his story? What’s it like for him? What’s it like being him, what defines him, what defines what he is? How do you make that might moment in his life? What would be the Doctor’s most important day, what would be the show that would change him as a person for ever, alter the course of his life?

“That’s what’s big enough to do for the 50th, rather than just a parade of the greatest hits. Never mind that space badger one; this is the adventure that he really remembers, and thinks, ‘That was the day everything changed.’”

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